A writer has to surprise himself to be worth reading.

First drafts are for learning what your novel or story is about. Revision is working with that knowledge to enlarge and enhance an idea, to re-form it.... The first draft of a book is the most uncertain-where you need guts, the ability to accept the imperfect until it is better.

There are no wrong books. What's wrong is the fear of them.

How can we be strangers if we both believe in God?

Some men are by nature explorers; my nature is to stay under the same moon and stars, and if the weather is wet, under the same roof. It's a strange world, why make it stranger?

As long as a man stays alive he can't tell what chances will pop up next. But a dead man signs no checks.

First drafts are for learning what your story is about.